Celia Garth: A Novel (12 page)

When Jimmy came into the library they sat on the sofa by the fire and he told her about his conversation with his mother. Beatrice said she had heard good reports of Celia and she approved of the engagement, and she asked how soon he wanted to be married. But when Jimmy said right away, Beatrice burst out laughing and said getting married was not something you did at a week’s notice. Besides, Miles and Audrey were expecting their baby in February. The first offspring of the head of the house—boy or girl, this would be an important baby, to be treated with respect. Everything else must stand aside till after the christening. That would be quite an affair, with uncles and aunts and cousins to be entertained—

Celia had never had any feeling of being part of a unit, belonging to other people and sharing their lives. “Oh Jimmy,” she said softly, “it sounds so complicated—but so wonderful!”

Jimmy said it was wonderful and not complicated at all. Since the christening would be in March, if Celia approved he would like to set their wedding for April. And as she attended St. Michael’s church, they would be married there by the rector, the Reverend Mr. Moreau. Celia agreed, and Jimmy said he would speak to Mr. Moreau as soon as he went back to town.

He turned so he could look squarely at her. His face had the happy glow that she knew and liked so well.

“Now,” he said, “you’re going to write a letter for me to take back to town, telling Mrs. Thorley you’re giving up your job. You can finish whatever work you’re doing for Vivian, but after that you’re sewing for nobody. And until next April you’re staying here with the Lacys.”

Celia started. “Oh Jimmy, what makes you think they’ll want me? Have you asked them?”

“Vivian suggested it herself,” said Jimmy. “They both like you, and they like having people around. It keeps them from worrying. They’ve got plenty on their minds. Luke you know about, and Mr. Lacy has a grandson named Tom who’s fighting with the Continentals somewhere around Philadelphia. What all this is leading up to—”

He paused for a tantalizing instant, then said,

“Vivian is going to give a ball for you, New Year’s Eve.”

Celia gasped. Nobody had ever given any sort of entertainment in her honor.

“She loves to give parties,” Jimmy went on, “and she said this was a fine excuse. For your ball-gown she’s going to give you a piece of stuff Godfrey brought her, I think she said garnet-red velvet—”

Garnet-red velvet. Quite suddenly, Celia burst into tears.

Jimmy took her in his arms and laughed at her. But Celia shook her head.

“It’s too perfect,” she said in a choking voice. Reaching into her pocket she grasped the rabbit’s foot and held it tight as she insisted, “Nothing can be this perfect. Jimmy—I’m scared.”

But after that day she had no time to be scared. She had too much to do.

She helped Vivian write invitations to the New Year’s ball. She cut and stitched her dress of garnet velvet. She ran upstairs and down on Vivian’s errands. Everybody in the household was running about—everybody but Herbert and Vivian. Herbert retired to his library or went for long horseback rides, blandly ignoring the fluster. As for Vivian, she reclined on the long chair in her boudoir and gave orders, and while the others bustled around her she remained calm as a cabbage.

New Year’s Eve would come this year on a Friday. Most of the guests were expected to arrive the day before and stay over Sunday. Every bedroom in the house would be full, as well as the two guest-houses at the back, while the stables and servants’ quarters would almost bulge. Audrey wrote Celia a pretty note, saying the state of her health prevented her attending the ball, but she did want to know Jimmy’s bride-to-be. Wouldn’t Celia come to Bellwood in March, and be her guest for the week of the christening?

Celia wrote back that she would be delighted. While she sewed on her ball-dress she thought of all she would do to make Jimmy’s family like her. She would be always agreeable. She would carry on about the baby as if she had never seen one before. She would listen carefully to find out which relatives the baby was supposed to look like, so she could exclaim, “The very image of Uncle John!” All babies looked alike to her, but she would not say so, or make any other sassy remarks.

Even Roy was being amiable. Jimmy had written him about their engagement, and Roy had responded with joyful surprise. He said no more about the necklace. To Celia’s relief, he said that since he and Sophie were in mourning they would not attend the ball.

She was planning to wear the necklace that evening, and a pair of bracelets Jimmy had given her. These were two garlands of gold roses, which Jimmy’s grandfather had given his bride, mother of Jimmy’s mother. “And now,” Jimmy said to Celia, “they’re yours.”

At last it was the evening of December 31, 1779. The tall clock on the staircase landing at Sea Garden showed less than an hour before midnight. In an interval between dances Celia and Jimmy stood with a group by the punch-table in a corner of the ballroom, Celia in her dress of dark red velvet, Jimmy tall and dashing in his blue coat with silver buttons. As she looked over the assembly Celia thought she had never seen anything so magnificent.

The ballroom was two stories high and occupied a whole wing of the house. On three sides were long windows, and mirrors on the walls between them. On the fourth side was a marble fireplace with a leaping fire. The room was lit by two hundred candles. Pale green, made of the sweet wax of myrtleberries, the candles filled the air with fragrance. The candle-flames and firelight shone back and forth from the mirrors, and the beautiful people promenading the dance-floor moved as though in the radiance of a dream.

On a platform were the chairs of the Negro musicians, empty now while the men were outside around another punch-bowl. But the ballroom had a music of its own. Celia listened to it—voices and laughter, footsteps on the floor, the swish of skirts, now and then a clink as two friends touched their glasses. Outdoors, the night was black and sloshy, with gusts of icy rain. But here everything was bright, everybody was gay; between the window-curtains Celia saw raindrops sparkling on the panes like reflections of the women’s jewels.

Her own reflection came back to her from a mirror on the wall. “I’m not really beautiful,” she said to herself, “but tonight I feel beautiful. And I look like a girl who feels beautiful.”

She had made the dark red velvet into a dress of splendid simplicity: low square neck, bodice that nipped her waistline to exquisite smallness, big skirt trailing behind her. Around her throat she wore the emerald necklace, on her arms Jimmy’s bracelets of gold roses. In the candlelight her eyes were lustrous, dark brown, and her blond hair glowed like a moonbeam. Jimmy had said her hair was too pretty to be covered with powder. So Celia had brushed it to a shimmer, and Marietta had put it up into a fashionable coiffure with a decoration of little flowers made of the same dark red velvet as her dress.

She took a step to one side so she could see Jimmy in the mirror. He was handing a glass of punch to Vivian’s daughter Madge Penfield. How debonair he looked—his blue coat, cascades of white lawn at his throat and wrists, his black hair in glistening ripples, his white silk stockings and silver-buckled shoes. She glanced from the mirror to Jimmy himself; for a moment their eyes met and they exchanged a quick smile. Then Jimmy, all grace, turned to Burton Dale’s stout rosy wife Elise and asked if she would take a glass of punch.

Celia looked around again. She saw Herbert Lacy, in a pink coat and white wig, chatting with Dan Pomeroy. Vivian was moving about with the poise of the perfect hostess, deft, gracious, beautiful. She was superbly dressed in white satin with an over-skirt of black lace. Her hair was a white tower, her jewelry silver with amethysts. Every man she passed, from ancient Simon Dale leaning on his gold-topped cane, to eighteen-year-old Paul de Courcey strutting in his brand new rebel uniform, paused as she went by and inclined his head in instinctive tribute. Vivian accepted their homage with the ease of long custom. She had been fascinating men for fifty years, and it was no surprise to her that she was doing it still.

It seemed to Celia that everything had been perfect, from the very beginning of the ball when she and Jimmy had stepped forth to lead the minuet. She had been a miracle of grace—those were Jimmy’s words, but even Vivian said she had done well. When Celia exclaimed, “Oh thank you, Mrs. Lacy!”—Vivian laughed and said, “I think now you may call me Vivian.”

Celia liked this. Not only because it meant she had won Vivian’s approval, but because it marked the change in her own status. She wondered if Jimmy would ever know how much he was giving her. These people—how different their attitude was now, from what it had been in her pre-Jimmy days!

Not all the guests had met her before, but a sizable number of them had come to the shop while she worked there. Celia observed these with amusement. When Vivian made the introductions, some of them greeted her as if they had never seen her until now, evidently thinking it tactful to ignore the fact that she had been a sewing-girl. But others were like Mrs. Baxter, who gushed, “Oh yes, I know Miss Garth, we are
quite
old friends.” Or like Rena Fairbanks, who had been to school with Celia but had not called attention to it until tonight when she exclaimed, “We must get together soon and have a good long talk about the old days!” Celia smiled with cool politeness. It was fun to do a little snubbing herself.

But in general, they had been charming. She was the guest of honor and they treated her like it. She had danced and danced, and still had a list of gentlemen waiting their turns. She had even danced with Burton Dale, and though he had huffed and puffed through the measures he had danced with skill. But Burton’s half-brother Godfrey Bernard, he was lean and light on his feet as a boy, and he had a suave elegance of manner that no boy could match.

Darren was not here. When she asked about him, Godfrey said he had sent Darren on a business trip. They had expected him back in time for the ball; probably the weather had delayed him. Celia was disappointed, but not too much. There were plenty of other men.

The next dance had been timed to end just before midnight. As it ended, the waiters would pass glasses of wine, and open the door to the hall so they could all hear the great clock strike twelve. Then when they had drunk to a happy New Year, Herbert and Vivian, followed by Jimmy and herself, would lead the way into the dining-room for supper.

And what a supper!—crab soup and scalloped oysters, wild duck cooked in wine, baked whiting with shrimp sauce, smoked ham, veal in coin-thin slices covered with cream; jellies and tarts and cream-puffs, and Madeira wine that had been aging for years in the cypress attic.

And after supper, more dancing. Celia set her glass on the table and exchanged another rapturous smile with Jimmy. The older folks might prefer to sit by the wall after supper and look on, but she and Jimmy were not tired. They felt like dancing till dawn.

It was time to primp for that next dance. As she crossed the hall toward the dressing room she could hear the clock, ponderously ticking toward midnight.

When Marietta had smoothed her hair and patted her temples with rosewater, Celia came back to the ballroom. She and Jimmy took their places. As they danced Celia looked around at the brilliant costumes and flashing jewels, and thought of a flower garden sparkling after a shower.

The dance ended, and the waiters began to pass the wine. The men of the family moved to stand in a group before the door to the hall—Herbert and his son Eugene, and Vivian’s sons Burton and Godfrey. When she had beckoned Celia and Jimmy to the front so they would stand facing Herbert, Vivian took her place beside him.

One of the waiters placed a footstool in front of the doorway. Herbert stepped on the stool so they could all see him, and held up his glass. With his glistening white wig, his pink coat and lace ruffles, his face flushed with pleasure—for Herbert enjoyed a party as long as he had nothing to do but enjoy it—he looked gay and cordial, a man who had liked every one of his seventy years. The guests fell silent as he began to speak.

“Ladies and gentlemen, in a few minutes the year 1780 will begin. As you know, we are here to congratulate our fortunate friend Captain Rand on his engagement to Miss Celia Garth. So as our last act of the old year, let us drink to their happiness!”

As all the glasses were raised together it was like the sparkling of a thousand stars. There was a medley of words and laughter. Celia felt Jimmy’s hand give her elbow a squeeze.

The waiters were refilling the glasses. Herbert raised his hand again to ask for silence.

“The clock is about to strike,” he said. “Listen!”

They listened. Then it came, the deep solemn sound of the clock. Bong, bong—Celia felt her heart bounce like a ship in the wind. It was so beautiful, so thrilling—she looked at Jimmy. Soundlessly, his lips moved to say to her, “Happy New Year!”

—Bong, said the clock. Bong—

There was a noise outside. It was a noise made of many noises—horses’ hoofs squelching in the mud, men shouting orders, a pounding on the front door and the sound of the door bursting open. In the hall, servants cried out in alarm and a dish dropped and broke on the floor. In the ballroom the whole company, as if pushed from behind, took a step toward the doorway. The room was suddenly full of voices as everybody asked everybody else what was going on.

Jimmy was holding Celia to him with an arm around her waist. A man strode into the ballroom, a burly creature who smelt like a wet dog. He had on a leather jacket and breeches, heavy riding-boots and a wide hat, and his face was covered with whiskers. His clothes were mud-spattered, dripping on the polished floor; trickles ran off his sodden hat to his shoulders. The hat-brim was so limp that it hung forward and hid most of his face above the beard.

Just over the threshold he stopped. With a look of bewilderment he stared at the brilliant throng. A hundred shrill questions came at him, but he answered nothing because in that moment of shock he seemed to hear nothing. Three or four other bedraggled men came behind him, and like him they stopped as if blinded by the glitter within. And then—it was only an instant but it had seemed like a long time—they heard a cry from Vivian, a cry like music and laughter as she sprang forward.